The Self and The Dance.

After their best gig ever, the jazz trio report that it was like time evaporated and so did their self consciousness. They say their reflectively aware egos "disappeared." But the instruments didn't play themselves. And they didn't sound like someone else, but themselves at their best and fullest potential. Scotty Pippin, the Chicago Bulls basketball great, reported that in their greatest games, it was the same. Time slowed down, or almost didn't exist. There was no conscious thought. The ball was where it was supposed to be. Michael was where he was supposed to be. In the zone, what was to happen just happened, and he was aware almost as an observer but not making decisions or wondering or trying hard against the opponents, who themselves became just a part of the dance. When I was writing my novels, my deliberative mind that, left on its own will write a sentence seven times to get it right, and then delete it, that mind seemed to have taken a break and gotten out of the way, and the story just flowed with its own quick speed and power. I'd sit and type for six hours and it would seem like twenty minutes.

All our humanly created problems result from big opaque blundering egos out of control and in the way. "I want." "I need." "I'm mad as hell." All great solutions to problems seem to arise out of ego holidays, when the big bloated beast gets out of the way and allows the dance to happen, the dance that begins who knows where and bubbles up in the quantum field and reaches out in mental and spiritual ways to animate anyone whose egos have become more translucent, then transparent, and then even bow out of the way. The dance happens and we're there and not there and more there than ever and yet are conduits. We're the canvas on which the dance is painted, the floor on which it happens, the air through which it moves. We get out of our own way and make way for the way that alone will lead us well. So, when you catch ego rearing up and roaring, back it off, calm it down, soothe it and rock it to sleep so that something great and full of wonder can happen, like that jazz guy or that baller or that author or the mesmerizing teacher or that nurse who lights up the room with her dance. When the self can be free of the ego, it can dance.

Becoming More Intuitive

In every field of endeavor, there are innovators who naturally seem to pioneer new ways of doing things. There are individuals who are known for their endless creativity. They are often also people who, over and over, seem to be in the right place at the right time to make the right connections to do great things. The rest of humanity struggles, but these golden individuals, as if touched by the divine, seem to flourish effortlessly.

There are two things to say about such people. One is that their trajectory of success isn't typically as smooth or as easy as it seems. Such people tend to work very hard. And they long have. Because of that, they've attained a level of mastery in their field that's unusual. And this allows their work to have exceptional results. Like the metaphorical swan, all still and serene above water, they can seem to be at ease, but their hard paddling below the surface is what gets them across the lake.

And yet, there is a second thing to say, even more important than this.

These people tend to be highly intuitive. They don't just depend on normal "rational" thinking. And they don't feel a pressure to do everything the way everyone else does it. They listen to their heart, or maybe it's something beyond their heart.

The ancient Greeks talked of a spirit or muse. The Romans spoke of a guiding genius, not in you, but outside you, that's available to help you. However we conceptualize it, there seems to be an avenue of knowing and doing that's in some sense spiritual in nature. Accessing it requires us to get beyond our normal thought world, to reduce our mental chatter and clear out the clutter that otherwise blocks us from something deeper, and open ourselves to this powerful guidance. Sometimes it happens in extreme circumstances, during times of great danger. A switch flips. A strong clarity arises. And we're transported to a new level of being, feeling, thinking, and doing. It more often happens when there is preternatural calm within, a quietness and emptiness that allows itself to be filled. A supreme focus can facilitate it. A  great relaxation of the body, or a repetitive engagement of it, as in walking, or jogging, can at times create just the right soil, fertile for new ideas to be noticed and planted and to grow.

In a small meeting room yesterday at the large pharmaceutical development company PPD, I talked about how I have discovered my own best intuitive work. I told my story of unexpectedly coming to write eight novels in a period of four years, after forty years of authoring nonfiction philosophy books.  In this unexpected adventure of becoming a novelist, I've learned how to relax my body in order to disengage the normal flow of my conscious mind. And this is when the magic can happen. I think we all have that ability. And we can use it in whatever we do. Why don't we do so more?

My new book, The Oasis Within, begins the epic story whose main characters have taught me almost all I know about becoming more intuitive. I hope you'll also have a chance to learn from them as I have, and that it will have as big and deep an impact for you as it has had for me.

Embracing Change

The entire universe is engaged in a wild dance of change. In 500 BC, Heraclitus wrote, "Things are always changing." He was just echoing the Chinese I Ching, or Book of Changes, from much earlier in history. What would Heraclitus say now? Probably: "I told you so."

For so long, the nature of human life and civilization was mostly out of synch with the roiling reality of change below it, in the atomic and subatomic substructure of the cosmos. People lived much the same, day to day. There was an illusion of stability and solidity. Generations came and went in basically the same conditions. Even wars were all pretty much the same. But at some time toward the end of the last century, the mask of predictability slipped off, and we began to see the true face of change. And now, it just continually speeds up.

So, how do we embrace chance, rather than resisting it, resenting it, and then regretting it? We have to embrace a worldview that values growth and learning, second only to love. But of course, in order to live and convey love in the best ways, we need to learn and grow and ... change. Love isn't static. It's dynamic. Love is always changing. It either grows and flourishes in ever new ways, or it decays and diminishes. We know that, but we forget it. If you believe that nothing is more important than love, then you hold a worldview that requires you, for consistency, to embrace change.

"But not all changes are good." The voice in our heads will inevitably object.

A worldview that embraces change doesn't deny this at all. It just affirms that we can deal with any detrimental change by making our own healthy changes, in attitudes, actions, feelings, and thoughts. As long as we live, we can embrace change, either in a hug of affirmation, or as committed wrestlers twisting and turning it into something better than it at first presented itself to be. Embracing is engaging. It's sometimes about joy, sometimes about judo. But love can't just flee in the face of change. It always seeks to encounter the reality of what is and make the best of it. That requires always using what we have, being at peace within, and moving forward with courage and hope.

Things are not often what they seem. Neither are changes. Love will always caress or correct. It will embrace the realities of this dynamic world order and dance with the flux as it finds its way to the greatness that is its due.

How about you?

Note: This the first of a series of blogs by request. You guys have written me and suggested things to ponder. This is where it starts.

Pondering Tenacious Curiosity

Recently, I wrote in praise of curiosity ("The Secret Source of Creative Success" - to be found about a dozen blogs below). Today, I have an addendum. A friend yesterday sent me a link to a New York Times article on a 76 year old mathematician who happens to be a billionaire, and a good deal richer than others in the world of business whose names are nearly household words. Plus, he's a really nice guy who gives to worthy causes.

In the article, Jim Simons gradually reveals the key to his success. It's tenacious curiosity.

Curiosity can sometimes be like a bubble, forming quickly and popping just as fast. I wonder, we think, and then something interrupts us, ending our momentary intrigue. And the fleeting interest results in nothing. But in some people, curiosity can be like a plant, or a tree, springing forth from a seed of wonder, and then continuing to grow, and becoming strong. It's more like persistence, and dogged pursuit in this state of attention and concern that can lead to something great.

Clearly, curiosity won't help us much if it has an ephemerally short shelf life. It's tenacious curiosity that gives rise to patient investigations and what Simons credits as his ultimate secret weapon to seal the deal in his investigations - the proclivity to ponder.

Now, let's face it, pondering is not high up on the list of activities we're encouraged to engage in at the current cultural moment. To many people, it would seem as practical as yodeling, but without all the noise. And yet, it's behind breakthrough creativity, in math, science, business, art, and life.

Philosophy, Aristotle said, begins in wonder. Philo - the love of. Sophia - wisdom, or insight. All creativity begins in curiosity, or wonder, and the highest creations then come from sustaining that state of mind and heart, while also putting to work the power of pondering - turning ideas around in our thoughts, contemplating various aspects of them, consulting our deepest intuitions, and opening ourselves almost meditatively to greater insight.

So, my augmented recommendation today is to cultivate in yourself a tenacious curiosity, coupled with the profound power of pondering.

And when people question you for simply sitting still, staring out the nearest window, in silent consideration of the thoughts that your curiosity has sparked, you can tell them your philosopher recommended it as your key to the next great thing you'll do.

Ponder the possibilities.

The Wild, Alluring, Unpredictable Next

We're called not to predict the future, but to create it. Uncertainty isn't an obstacle, but the canvass on which we all paint.

Will you, then, just copy what others have done, tracing the lines they've already laid down, and using colors long before mixed, in the hope that this will serve you well? Or rather, will you, perhaps, paint boldly something new?

What we learn from the past can help us to get past the past and move into the distinctive future that our present can best create.

Your Deepest Resource

The conscious mind is a high walled fortress, with only a few small gates, all under guard. Those guards are your prior beliefs, attitudes, interests, and fears. It's amazing how little of anything new these strong sentries will ever let through.

The unconscious mind, by contrast, is a vast garden surrounded by only a short and open fence. It absorbs energy and intelligence and deep truth from all around it.

The fortress is cut off and isolated. The garden is wonderfully connected. Hordes of small flying envoys tend its flowers and pollinate its plants. The radiance of something greater comes into it and elicits its growth. And it's always open to the rains that come down to nurture it and wash it clean.

You live in the fortress, but need what's in the garden. Without it, you'll never thrive. The good news is that there's a secret door to the garden. The bad news is that it's normally blocked by the clutter and debris of a noisy and busy life. The realization that you need to live with, every day, is that you can sweep aside the clutter. You can reduce the chatter of the conscious mind, and get beyond it, and open the secret door, not just in quiet meditation by a stream or in a dojo or in a closed room alone, but at your desk, in your car, or on the treadmill at the gym.

But there's a lot to let go, a lot to release. Guards will rush into the room and try to block the door, and they will tell you that it's for your own protection, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You need what's out there. And when you dismiss the guards, quiet the chatter, and remove the clutter, the door will open itself.

And then the light will shine in and you can find yourself suddenly, wonderfully, able to move into that wild garden of insight, and energy, and hope, and that distinctive form of love that alone connects us to the best we can be and do.

When I walk in the garden, I'm refreshed and inspired and emboldened to do something new. I grow. I see in new ways. I hear quiet whispers. And I connect up with so much that, for too long, I've let the clutter and the chatter and well-meaning guards keep from me.

How do you get into the garden? What happens when you're there?

I have a story about this that I'll tell soon.

The Secret Source of Creative Success

We've all heard the old saying: Curiosity killed the cat. But I can assure you that the cat's just fine. It was simply propaganda put out by the dog. Only that ancient cat named Socrates was rewarded for his curiosity the final way.

It turns out that curiosity is the great differentiator. Highly curious people tend to be chief among the creative innovators, inventors, and pioneers in all dimensions of life and work. It's hard to think of anything a company needs in order to stay creative and competitive more than a culture of curiosity. And yet, that's something we rarely talk about, thereby once again confirming the profound and rarely discussed Socratic Inverse Attention Rule: The least important things, we think about and talk about the most; the most important things, we think about and talk about the least.

We should begin talking more about curiosity - what it is, and how it's cultivated. Because that, I believe, is the secret source of creative success.

What do you think? I'd like to know.

I'm curious.

Creativity in the Air We Breathe

Engagement and expectation are the twin keys to a culture of creativity. We need to feel deeply engaged in what we're doing, intellectually and emotionally, and we need to feel an encouragement and expectation that we'll always be trying something new. That should be in the air we breathe!

One of my old college friends, wrote me this morning that he had been blogging for ten years, and just went through all the posts of the past to see what had stood the test of time. He sent me a link to one he had put up after an email exchange we had in 2005. I want to post it today as a "Guest Blog" on these thoughts from my old buddy, the immensely creative Ed Brenegar. Here's Ed's original blog post:

Pioneering Creativity - Being Emotionally and Intellectually Engaged

Tom Morris emailed me about the notion of creating a culture of creativity.  Here's what he said.

"I think this climate of creativity is fostered when people are emotionally and  intellectually engaged in their work. They should think of themselves as pioneers. That's what it was like in my early years at Notre Dame. We just assumed we were the pioneers in philosophy of religion. We were all engaged so that no interaction was bland. There was a general expectation that we were always trying out new ideas on each other. Not many departments were like that. There was too much "ordinariness" of expectation. Even knowledge workers can fail to be emotionally and intellectually ENGAGED.  It's almost a spiritual disposition."

I very much agree with Tom here. 

What intrigues me about his comment is the recognition of the "'ordinariness' of expectation" by other departments. Unless there is an intentional effort to raise standards, the lowest standard in an organization will rule. Or, it is the standard that requires the least amount of effort to maintain a level of performance that keeps the wolves at bay.

In order to foster a culture of creativity, it requires people who are emotionally and intellectually engaged, and for that to happen, the leadership of the organization has to set a standard for performance that is both compelling and counteracts the tendency to marginal goals and aspirations.

Ultimately, this goes to the character of individuals. What I have found is that low standards are a product of the lack of vision or personal calling to achieve and the self-confidence to venture into unknown territory.

The people we celebrate as heroes, like Nobel Prize recipients, explorers like Lewis & Clark and Shackleton and soldiers who fall on grenades to save their comrades, are people who are intellectually clear about what matters and emotionally passionate about the opportunities and the cost that their ventures bring. These are the leaders from whom we can learn how to pioneer creativity that brings greatness.

- See more at: http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/leading_questions/2005/02/pioneering_crea.html#sthash.goBJkYU7.dpuf